A 19-year-old Pakistani woman was sentenced to death by stoning for the crime of being brutally raped at gunpoint by her cousin.
According to this, the woman said she was sleeping when her cousin entered the room and raped her while holding a gun to her head. She reportedly told her family immediately after the attack, then reported the incident to the local tribal court in her home town of Rajanpur, presumably seeking justice for being sexually assaulted.
Instead, the tribunal decided she had intentionally seduced her cousin, labeled her an adulteress and sentenced her to either die by stoning or be sold as a slave.
The court, which the report notes is a local body and not an official state judicial branch, ruled that no action should be taken against her attacker.
To his credit, the girl’s father appears to have taken her side in the whole ordeal – a fortunate alliance that isn’t always a given in Muslim countries, leading to many "ruined" women being murdered by embarrassed family members in so-called “honor killings.” Fortunately, in this case, the girl and her father reportedly went to the local police, who’ve issued warrants for the tribal court members and the girl’s alleged attacker.
So far, four men have been arrested.
Sadly, for many women in Muslim countries (you know, women who have more to complain about than debunked gender wage gaps and having to pay for their own birth control), stories like this happen all the time.
Back in 2011, a 14-year-old girl in the Muslim nation of Bangladesh was kidnapped, beaten and raped by her much older cousin. When the local village leaders found out, they sentenced her to 101 lashes for having an affair with a married man. She made it through 70 before she collapsed, eventually dying in a hospital several days later. In the initial autopsy, officials ruled her death a suicide.
So far, no marches, Twitter campaigns or protests before the U.S. State Department to demand protection for women in Muslim nations have been announced.